I woke in early light to the feel of Sweet Grecy’s breath against my back. Given a choice, I would still be lying there with her spooned against me. But duty calls. Duty calls. This letter has to be finished and in the mail by Oh-Dark-Thirty. Sometimes these letters are easy to write. Easy, like marshmallow dreams. Other times, like today, I crawl over broken glass on hands and knees, and bleed each word through a thousand painful cuts.

I have read that the kindest wish a Buddhist can have is that their loved one die before them, so they, not the loved, will suffer the mourning. I cannot give myself over to that wish. I am too selfish. And given that Grecy has just come into her middle years, I will almost certainly leave this world first. Because of Grecy, I can no longer die alone. She will have to suffer it through. The thought of that saddens me.

Sometimes when alone, I imagine my death. That is another thing Buddhists do. They even have a meditation for it. In their mind’s eye they see their dead body from above, and watch as it decays back to star dust. They find comfort in that, in the knowing.

Grecy is my alpha and my omega. My raison d’être. Perhaps that too, is an unfair burden for her to bear, the heavy mantle of expectation I wrap round her shoulders. I have come to depend on her to carry me through the day, and sometimes, through the night. She could have done better. Found somebody to give her a better life. Somebody who could lift her and carry her. Perhaps this letter is the apology she will never see. In truth, I can think of no other reason for writing it, and it is the best I have to offer.

2 Responses to Sigurd 2/3/2015 – A Lightness of Being

Is that a picture of her? I’m sure she feels the same way. It happens like that, those inner guilt tearing away at your mind, but it also shows how much you two are connected and the love you have for her. Thank you for sharing, like all blah or painful times, this too shall pass.